


In Your Philosophy

by saltstreets



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Coda, Episode Tag, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7826266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltstreets/pseuds/saltstreets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s when he’s holding Scully in the drafty, dimly lit foyer of that horrible house, with the damp air of the unused and unlived in sinking deep to his bones, that Mulder becomes truly afraid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Philosophy

**Author's Note:**

> Episode tag for 2.13 ("Irresistible"). A very teeny tiny episode tag.
> 
> There's nothing better than lounging about watching random episodes of the X-Files with friends while eating too many artificially cheesy snacks. The perfect environment for writing ideas to appear!

 

 

It’s when he’s holding Scully in the drafty, dimly lit foyer of that horrible house, with the damp air of the unused and unlived in sinking deep to his bones, that Mulder becomes truly afraid.

He’d been frightened before, of course, during those miserable, hateful weeks after Duane Barry had traded his life for Scully’s and Mulder had seen the lights take her up into the sky, and then later when she had come back to lie in the hospital, a wax statue of herself that he could not reach. He’d been frightened. He’d been angry. He’d been burning up like a candle, fizzing out helplessly.

But now, Scully in his arms, bruised and battered, shaking with tears and the sudden lack of adrenaline as cops fill the room and Pfaster is taken away, Mulder is afraid.

Scully had been taken by aliens, by extraterrestrials, by this growing shadow of a dark underbelly to the very government they worked for, and Mulder had been helpless, he had been understandably helpless. But for this to happen on what should have been a more or less routine case, is almost worse. Pfaster is just a man. That alone makes it difficult to face.

Equally terrible is seeing Scully breaking apart. He suddenly feels very stupid, standing there in the hall with his arms around her. The whole time that he had been telling her to take time before coming back to work, and he had only been telling her to be just as alone as she had been even at his side. Why hadn’t he asked, why hadn’t he-

He’s trying to hold together the strongest person he knows, and Mulder feels terribly, desperately inadequate. More so than the night he had sat by her side in the hospital, knowing he was letting the men go who had put her there, in that unmoving, unfeeling state so unnatural to Dana Scully, she who was perpetually turning and seeing and understanding. Knowing he wasn’t going to be able to get anything for her, not revenge or something like it. Even then, he hadn’t felt as completely useless as he does now.

Scully’s expression had been a terrible one. His hand under her scraped chin, his eyes watching hers crack, the facade that she had been put so carefully in place finally slipping off its hinges and letting pour out all the fear and trembling that had been bottled up inside her.

All this happening on the face of the planet, in a house that was home to a human being who had done something to Scully and to many, many others. A human being with no connections, no affiliations to the greater picture. No shadowy webs of lies and conspiracy. Just an isolated incident. Just another person.

Mulder never wants to see Scully’s eyes like this again. Only adding to his guilt is the knowledge that were their situations reversed, Scully likely would have seen the post-traumatic stress in him coming from a mile away. She would have talked to him, not as though his experiences were just another piece in the puzzle, another _X-File,_ but something that had _happened,_ to him, to be unpacked and talked over and dealt with. He can’t believe he’s been so poor a friend.

Scully’s sobs have subsided, her breathing still hitched but quieter. She makes no move to extract herself from his arms and Mulder isn’t planning on letting go of her in any case. The cops have steered Pfaster away and the place is clearing out, but no one’s bothering them, the FBI no longer needed. Case closed.

 

 


End file.
